Blue Jackets improve on ice, but attendance, TV ratings among worst

Friday

Mar 28, 2014 at 12:01 AMMar 28, 2014 at 9:37 AM

The past 13 months have seen the longest stretch of sustained success in the 13-season history of the Blue Jackets. The team is on pace to set numerous franchise records, and its strong play reaches well back into last season. The only place it hasn't reached is the box office.

Aaron Portzline, The Columbus Dispatch

The past 13 months have seen the longest stretch of sustained success in the 13-season history of the Blue Jackets.

If the season had ended yesterday, the Jackets would be a Stanley Cup playoff team in the National Hockey League's Eastern Conference. They are on pace to set franchise records for standings points, wins, road wins and goals scored, among other statistics, and the Blue Jackets' strong play reaches well back into last season.

The only place it hasn't reached is the box office.

The Blue Jackets are in fourth place in the eight-team Metropolitan Division, but they are 29th in a 30-team league in attendance, drawing 14,347 per game to Nationwide Arena, which has been filled to its 18,144-seat capacity only four times in 36 games this season.

"We've still got work to do with some folks, and we've not shied away from that," said John Davidson, the Blue Jackets' president of hockey operations. "People have been disappointed by their hockey team here through the years, and so we have a lot to prove to those people."

Tonight's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins probably will be sellout No. 5, but that will be due in large part to the thousands of black-and-gold-clad Penguins fans in the stands; they are partially responsible for two previous sellouts in Nationwide this season.

It has been surmised for years that Blue Jackets fans were lying in wait, ready to don their jerseys and march to Nationwide when the club (finally) became competitive.

But only the Phoenix Coyotes, whose fate in the desert has been in doubt for much of the past decade, are drawing fewer fans (13,585) than Columbus.

"For so many years, my money went to a team that didn't play very well and, worse, didn't seem to care much a lot of nights," said Rob Krohn, a marketing director and graphic designer for a homebuilder in Dublin.

He used to attend 10 games per season, but he's down to two.

"This isn't Pavlov's dog, where they can win a couple of games, everybody's mouth starts watering and you jump right back in again," Krohn said. "I still care, but I'm still waiting."

And there are even more troubling signs.

Although the Blue Jackets have seen a 23 percent bump in season-ticket sales over the past year - from fewer than 7,000 season-ticket equivalents early last season to 8,600 as of this week - attendance actually has dipped from last season's 14,564 average.

That suggests that the new season-ticket buyers were those who bought "walk-up" tickets last season, not new customers, and that the walk-up numbers from last season have slid considerably.

"It's been pretty well documented that we had a substantial regression in our season-ticket base over the years," said Blue Jackets chief marketing officer John Brown. "Those people left us, and in the interim found other things to do with their time and dollars.

"I'd like to believe that deep down in those folks is still a love of the game, and there's fond memories of the good ol' days when the building was packed. My job is to get them back in here, even if it's just for a sample that could rekindle that spirit."

Further, according to a recent report in Sports Business Journal, the Blue Jackets rank 29th in the NHL in TV viewership. According to sources, the Jackets attract an average of 6,000 households per broadcast on Fox Sports Ohio, down from 9,000 last season.

By comparison, FSO broadcasts last season of Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds (18,000 households) and Cleveland Indians (9,285 households) earned more viewers, while the National Basketball Association's Cleveland Cavaliers (5,400) draw a number closer to the Blue Jackets' on most nights.

Paul Swangard, who teaches sports marketing and business at the University of Oregon, said these are troubling - but not unusual - signs in pro sports today.

"The long-standing tradition of the Blue Jackets not being competitive has worn thin with people," Swangard said. "They have to build equity with fans. They have to win and sustain winning a long time to change" the business model.

"The attendance figures and the TV ratings add up to what we've often found in not-traditional hockey markets, which is that almost everyone who cares is in the building, and it's the kind of dashboard indicators that would, or should, raise red flags within the team and at the league level."

But NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the league's decision to award the 2015 NHL All-Star Game to Columbus is a sign that the league remains steadfast in its belief that Columbus is a sound market.

"The Blue Jackets are doing just fine," Bettman said in an email exchange with The Dispatch. "They have put together a strong young team, they have built momentum on the ice and in the community, and we are truly excited about their present as well as their future."

The Blue Jackets don't appear overly concerned, either. Early this season, there were some thin crowds: eight games with fewer than 12,000 fans, including two with fewer than 10,000. Still, they're raising season-ticket prices in almost every section of the building for next season.

"When we started out in St. Louis, we'd have 5,000 or 6,000 fans a game," said Davidson, who held the same role with the Blues from 2006 to 2013. "We have to earn the people back. That's how it works in any business.

"I know we have work to do, but I know these fans. I've been able to meet some of them. They're great fans. We just have to earn their trust back."

What might that entail?

Over the Blue Jackets' past 100 games, they are 55-34-11, a 121-point total that trails only NHL titans Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles in that span.

But the only four sellouts this season have been on opening night (vs. Calgary), two home games vs. Pittsburgh (with thousands of Penguins fans on hand), and last Friday against the New York Rangers, when former Blue Jackets captain Rick Nash returned to the city.

Still, sources said the "Nash game" was not sold out until a few days before, when the Blue Jackets gave away or steeply discounted several hundred tickets.

There are signs that the Blue Jackets are gradually reaching more fans. In the first 18 home games, the Jackets drew 13,289 fans on average. In the most recent 18 home games, they've drawn 15,406.

Also, ratings on FSO have averaged more than 8,000 households since Jan. 1.

"We've had some really good buildings this year, even when it's not sold out," said Blue Jackets forward R.J. Umberger. "Of course, you'd love to play in a building that's packed and loud every night, but I understand it.

"We can't act like we're waiting on the fans. They've been waiting on us for how long now? It's going to happen. I can feel it. And when it does, it's going to be awesome here."